Bill McDonald – Page 14 – Blue and Gold 1968-71

Classes

It’s Officer Candidate School, so you figure there are classes. While we had activities such as firefighting, PT, and drilling in formation, most of our time was spent in classrooms and, after dinner, studying in our rooms. As ordered!

Seachest reports that we had class from 0800 until 1100 or noon and then, following lunch and a little PT, classes again 1300-1600. Then came drill, dinner, and “an opportunity to take care of personal requirements such as writing letters and maintaining his uniforms.” (Those “opportunities” were fun times.) At 1900, we sat down at our desks for three hours of study, with two specified 10-minute breaks, and then a half-hour to get ready for taps at 2230.

I know we all made best use of that study time. I remember trying to figure out a way I could nap with my head up. Doors had to remain open, I believe, and some NAVOCS staff had the duty to wander the halls. I’m sure I, and many others, managed on occasion to hold our head up with our hands and still catch a few winks.

According to Seachest, we spent 390 hours total in the classroom during NAVOCS, “studying tactics, leadership, engineering and navigation, and naval management.” And, Seachest claims, that amount of classroom instruction was close to what a normal college year would entail.

One of the toughest courses, for me at least, was “organization,” the Navy’s bureaucracy and its administrative procedures. By toughest, I mean it was the most difficult in which to stay awake. Navy regs, directives and instructions, reports, record-keeping, correspondence . . . life according to the NAVINST. All very important, but sometimes too difficult to process when you were tired or worn out.

There are two instructors I remember especially. One was BTC Holzer, who was in the Technology division and taught us, I believe, about boilers. Chief Holzer just seemed to be what I expected a chief boiler technician to be like, and that was a very positive thing. The other was LT Gordon, in Tactics (photo at top). For some reason, I just thought he looked squared away. I looked at the two gold stripes on the sleeve and the service ribbons and thought I might look like that some day. (I did, somewhat, but my time as a Lieutenant was not until the Reserves and for only a couple of years.)

I also remember Victory at Sea. I had watched some of it when I was a kid, but seeing it at NAVOCS was extra special. Yes, it was a majestic tribute to the Navy and Marine Corps in WWII, but, at NAVOCS, when instructors would choose to show us an episode, it meant the lights went going to go down and, thus, so did our heads. Maybe 20 minutes of rest.

One episode of Victory at Sea we watched shows a Navy pilot crash landing his plane on a carrier and later assisting in the burial at sea of a crew mate from that flight. Recently Don Cosgrove, fellow member of A6903, told me something I had not known — that pilot was Don’s father. Don recalls pointing it out to some at the time and Dennis Greenspon confirms that account.

At some point, those of us who had attained a certain grade point average became eligible for a white name tag. As much of what we were tested on required repetition of information we had read or been told, and that was in my intellectual wheelhouse, I qualified for said white name tag. While it was not regarded as any particular academic achievement, such name tag enabled its bearer to have extra liberty. White name tag bearers were able to return from weekend liberty somewhat later than others on Sundays, and could go on liberty one night during the week. Extra liberty was worth something.

Navy-Army 1968

Midshipmen in formation before the 1968 Navy-Army game.

Navy and Army — of course the US Naval Academy and US Military Academy — meet on the gridiron for the 119th time today in Philadelphia. Fifty years ago, the game took place on November 30, also in Philadelphia.

Led by fullback Charlie Jarvis, who scored all three Army touchdowns, the Cadets (6-3) beat the Midshipmen (2-7), 21-14. The game also featured Army’s first African-American player, end Gary Steele.

The 1968 victory put Army ahead in the series 33-30-6. Going into today’s game, Navy leads the series 60-51-7.

December 1968

Things in the “real world”we may have missed, and found out about only later.

Elvis Presley made his comeback appearance on television on December 3. The show included a performance in an intimate, informal setting, with Elvis being joined by a couple of his original band members and surrounded by a small number of fans. It was the highest rated holiday season TV special that year and later became known as the “Comeback Special.”

Seventeen crew members of the US Coast Guard Cutter White Alder were killed on December 7, when their buoy tending ship was sheared in half by a Taiwanese freighter off the shore of Louisiana.

Graham Nash of the British group, The Hollies, decided December 8 to join Stephen Stills and David Crosby of Buffalo Springfield to form Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team, watching the final home game on December 15 in a season with only two wins, were so upset that they booed, and then threw snowballs at Santa Claus, earning the city a reputation as having the most boorish sports supporters in the nation. Frank Olivo, the man recruited to portray Jolly St. Nick and to walk around the field during halftime of the game against the Minnesota Vikings, would laugh years later about being pelted by snowballs. The incident became a part of the franchise’s history.

Apollo 8 became the first manned space vehicle to break out of Earth’s orbit on December 21, and the three American astronauts on board— Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders — went further from Earth than anyone in history.

North Korea released the 82 members of the USS Pueblo on December 22, after 11 months of captivity that had started when the American ship was seized by North Korea on the previous January 23rd. The handover of the men, along with the body of Seaman Duane Hodges (who had been killed when the Pueblo had been fired upon), took place at the border at Panmunjom. The Pueblo itself was kept by the North Koreans and would later be put on display as a tourist attraction. The freed crewmen were flown to Naval Air Station, Miramar, near San Diego, on Christmas Eve for a reunion with their families.

Iconic photo (“Earthrise”) taken on Apollo 8 mission.

On Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Anders flew past the Moon, became the first people to see its far side,. After making minor course corrections, they fired the engines of the craft to begin mankind’s first lunar orbit. Over the remainder of the day, the men circled the Moon 10 times, each trip around taking about two hours, took photos of potential landing sites, and made two television transmissions to earth. Apollo 8 left Moon orbit and began its trip back to Earth on Christmas Day, returning successfully on December 27.

Army Major James Rowe, who had been held for more than five years as a prisoner by the Viet Cong, managed to escape his captors on December 31 after finding an opportunity to overpower and disarm his guard. Major Rowe, a Green Beret, had been a Special Forces adviser to a South Vietnamese Army unit when he was captured on October 29, 1963. Since then, he had been held in South Vietnam in the Mekong River delta.

Thanksgiving 1968

There are numerous clues that this photo does not show marching at OCS. It’s from the Philly Thanksgiving parade in 1968. Those girls are now in their 60s.

Thanksgiving in 1968 was almost a week later than this year’s holiday. The fourth Thursday in November fell on the 28th 50 years ago.
**************
UPDATE: Lenny Borg recalls a special Thanksgiving liberty, which was, apparently, a long weekend. His report: “I was invited to spend Thanksgiving at the home of Gini Solomon and her parents near Groton, Conn., where Mr. Solomon was in charge of research for Pfizer. Gini was the amazingly cute squeeze of Tom Matter, a friend of mine from Vanderbilt who had quite a way with the ladies. Joining Gini and me would be Barham Ray and my long-time girlfriend from Dallas. Barham, another close friend from Vanderbilt, was also in Alpha Company but a class or two ahead of us. As we hadn’t seen an attractive girl since reporting to OCS two months before, the thought of being around those two beauties all weekend sounded like paradise.

“On Wednesday or Thursday of that week I committed the unpardonable sin of compromising my piece. That consisted of failing to lock a flimsy metallic locker, thereby exposing a disabled WWII-vintage rifle to the first eager spy who could scale the fences and bypass the armed sentries long enough to steal it and spirit it back to the Soviet Union.

“The question was whether gigs would be issued soon enough to condemn me to marching on the grinder for all of Thanksgiving weekend. Chief Sheppard probably slowed down the processing of my infraction intentionally so that I could slip away for the holiday. He tried not to show it, but he seemed to have a heart of gold.

“The Solomons did not disappoint! Our first feast was served by Mrs. Solomon. When I raved about the meat dish – and everything else on the table – Mrs. Solomon admitted that she had to beg the town’s leading butcher to obtain that special cut. At another meal, we dined on lobster in the historic Lighthouse Inn Restaurant in New London, while viewing waves as they lapped against the rocks below. The food didn’t taste remotely like the fare in dining hall at OCS. And we didn’t have to line up in formation outside in the cold until everyone in the company arrived.

“After being continually berated for gig lines that weren’t straight, beds that failed to bounce a quarter, and shoes whose toes didn’t sparkle, it was heaven to be treated so kindly at every turn by Mr. and Mrs. Solomon and two lovely young girls.”
**************
Bob Hamilton suggests we did not have a holiday break at OCS, which sounds right. At least nothing extensive, as we would later have for Christmas. We likely had “the day off,” meaning it was holiday routine (and I expect that was principally so that NAVOCS staff could be home with families). We also likely had turkey and all the fixin’s for dinner. In my experience, the Navy generally did all right with holiday meals.

As was the case with many others, it was the first of three Thanksgivings in a row I did not spend with family at home. The following year, 1969, I was deployed in WESTPAC and I was in Coronado, Calif., in 1970.

Best wishes to all our classmates and shipmates for a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with families and friends.

Veterans Day

In 1968, Veterans Day, November 11, fell on a Monday. Today, we “observe” Veterans Day because the holiday fell on a Sunday. Veterans Day is one of only four federal holidays that occur on a fixed date, the others being New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and Christmas.

Following adoption of the federal Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, other holidays became “floaters,” allowing for more long weekends. That process became effective in 1971.

Originally, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act called for Veterans Day to be observed on the fourth Monday in October. There was so much resistance to this change from the traditional (46 states continued to observe the holiday on November 11) that Congress changed it back to November 11 in 1975, becoming effective in 1978.

I don’t remember if Veterans Day was a “holiday” for us at OCS. I also don’t believe we, as “officer candidates under instruction,” about six weeks into active duty, qualified as veterans at the time.

Nonetheless, we do now. I extend best wishes on this day to all the members of A6903, and to all other NAVOCS grads viewing this blog.

November 1968

The bombardment of North Vietnam by US forces ended on November 1. Airplanes stopped flying attack missions, ships stopped firing shells, and ground units near the border halted artillery fire.

The Motion Picture Association of America’s new movie rating system — G, M, R, X — went into effect on November 1. “M” for mature later became PG (parental guidance advised).

As mentioned in a separate post, the elections on November 5 put Republican Richard Nixon in the White House. Because of the closeness of the popular vote, influenced by the presence of third-party candidate of George Wallace, Democrat Hubert Humphrey did not concede until the morning of November 6.

Yale University announced on November 14 that it would begin to admit women to the class to enter in fall 2019, the first time in its then 267-year history.

In what later became known as the “Heidi Game,” NBC abruptly ended its November 17 telecast of the Oakland Raiders – New York Jets football game to show its scheduled Sunday night movie, Heidi. The televised portion of the game ended with Oakland trailing 29-32 with 65 seconds left. (The Raiders went on to score two touchdowns to win 43-32.) Many complaints ensued. Heidi ended up the highest rated program of the week.

An explosion on November 20 and subsequent carbon monoxide poisoning in a Mannington, West Va., mine killed 78 miners.

The last open gesture of defiance to the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia ended on November 21, when tens of thousands of students in Prague ended a 76-hour sit-in. The new Soviet-sponsored leadership in the nation decided not to crack down on the sit-in, but to let it takes it course. Student leaders agreed to a deadline, at which time, according to the New York Times, students “slowly and sadly took down the signs proclaiming the ‘occupation strike’ from the facade and doors of Prague University’s Philosophy and Law buildings.”

The Beatles released what was unofficially called the “White album” on November 22. That same day’s telecast of Star Trek contained the first interracial kiss — between Captain James Kirk (William Shatner) and Lieutenant Uhuru (Nicole Nichols) — on American television. No special mention of it was made at the time in media.

Pan Am flight 281, from New York City to San Juan, Puerto Rico, was hijacked by four of its 78 passengers on November 24. It landed in Havana, Cuba, and later reached its destination.

Election 1968

Election day in 1968 was Tuesday, November 5. At OCS, we were able to vote using absentee ballots. I chose not to vote.

It wasn’t the inconvenience or extra bother. It was the candidates. I didn’t want either one to be President.

That was back when I was a bit of a lefty. Not particularly radical, mind you. Just “progressive” back when that term had little meaning, I think.

As a Republican, Nixon was not going to get my vote. Humphrey, I saw as complicit in what I considered at the time as a misbegotten war in Vietnam. I wouldn’t have voted for President Lyndon Johnson either, if he had chosen to stay in the race.

The election was quite close in popular vote — Nixon winning by less than a percentage point over Humphrey and neither exceeding 44 percent. George Wallace, former governor of Alabama, also ran, representing the American Independent Party, and he received 13.5 percent of the national vote, winning five southern states.

‘Regular’ OCS

With the “hazing” over after a few days, A6903 settled into what constituted “regular” OCS. It was still military and, for most of us, very unfamiliar, but it was more ordered/less chaotic, more routine/less stressful.

OCS was described as an 18-week course that, according to the Seachest, our “yearbook,” “is concerned with imparting the knowledge, dedication to duty, and self-confidence necessary to mold a college graduate into a competent Naval Officer.”

We still had to get up at zero dark thirty (0530), do some calisthenics under the direction of “upperclassmen,” and then some “chores” involving cleaning, before getting into uniform and gathering in formation for breakfast. Boy, there were some cold mornings on Coddington Point.

We’ll have posts about various elements of our days, including classes, athletic competition, firefighting, standing OOD watches, etc., but we were settling into the routine.

A6903

“Farewell to college joys . . . .”
Anchors Aweigh

There were 14 of us in A6903.

As in many of the old World War II movies, we came from all corners of the US: Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Massachusetts, and Oregon.

In an odd precursor to what was to happen to me when I reported on board my ship the following spring, my OCS group also included another Boston College graduate. I had been acquainted with Greg McClure at BC, but I don’t believe we had any sense beforehand that we would be in this group together.

Two in A6903 were attorneys. Don Cockrill had received his law degree from University of Virginia and Bill Peeters was a graduate of Northwestern’s School of Law. Two others had graduate degrees. David Jones had received an MFA from Princeton and Harvey Katz was the holder of an MBA from Harvard Business School. They were obviously a few years older than the rest of us.

Besides the two BC grads, Lenny Borg and Cockrill were both graduates of Vanderbilt. Otherwise, the other undergraduate alma maters were University of Virginia, Coe College, Middle Tennessee State, Princeton, Penn, Florida State, University of Nevada, Notre Dame, Oregon State, and Amherst.

Among the entire 6903 contingent of about 220, the Ivy League was well represented, with about 10 percent of the group. A somewhat cursory scan of the colleges represented, however, found that that largest single group came from Williams.

October 1968

Here’s some of what was going on in the outside world while we started off at NAVOCS.

Night of the Living Dead had its premiere in Pittsburgh, Penn., on October 1. Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Olivia Hussey, debuted in the US on October 8. Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen and containing what many people consider “the most famous car chase in American cinematic history,” was first shown on October 17. Here’s video of the part of the chase inside San Francisco.

Presidential candidate George Wallace (American Independent Party) introduced his running mate for Vice President, retired Air Force General Curtis LeMay, on October 3.

“Operation Sealords,” in which American and South Vietnamese forces sought to disrupt enemy supply lines in the Mekong Delta, began on October 8.

On October 10, the Detroit Tigers defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1, to win the World Series in the seventh game. The Tigers came back from a 3-1 deficit in games and won the last three games to take the title.

“The first major firearms control act passed by Congress in 30 years,” previously approved in the Senate, was passed by the House on October 10.

Apollo 7, the first American space flight with three astronauts, launched on October 11. First mission to have all crew members with the common cold, it returned to earth on October 22.

Opening ceremonies of the XIX Olympic Games took place in Mexico City, Mexico, on October 12. While known as the Summer Olympics, the games were the second in succession to take place in the fall. On October 14, American sprinter Jim Hines became the first person to run 100 meters under 10 seconds, setting a world record of 9.95 seconds. Two days later, on the 16th, Americans Tommy Smith and John Carlos held up black-gloved fists during the playing of the National Anthem following the 400-meter race. American Bob Beamon, on October 18, broke the world record in the long jump by nearly two feet. His jump of 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches, stood as the record for 23 years and is still the second-longest jump in history. American Dick Fosbury introduced the “Fosbury flop” technique of high-jumping to the world on October 20 as he won a gold medal and set an Olympic record of 7 feet, 4 1/2 inches.

Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of assassinated US President John F. Kennedy, married Aristotle Onassis on the Greek island of Skorpios on October 20.

Led Zeppelin, formerly The New Yardbirds, gave their first live concert with their new name and new band members on October 25 in England.

On the last day of the month, and five days before the US elections, President Lyndon Johnson announced a stop to “all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam.”